Friday, January 9, 2015

Re-open cottage hospital to relieve A&E pressure says campaigner

* The closed down cottage hospital.

A LLANGOLLEN
campaigner has sent out a plea to health chiefs to re-open the town’s cottage
hospital to help relieve growing pressure on A&E services in Wrexham.

Martin
Crumpton, who led local opposition to the axing of the 137-year-old community
hospital in Abbey Road almost two years ago, has written toDr Peter Higson, Chair of the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health
board, calling for the facility which now lies boarded up and derelict, to be
allowed to open its doors again.

In his
letter, Mr Crumpton says: “Please announce
that you’re going to reopen the cottage hospitals whose closures, albeit not
the sole cause of the pressure on beds and directly on A&E, precipitated
this crisis.

“Everyone in Wales is angry and none
more so than in towns like Llangollen whose cottage hospital with its precious
beds was so foolishly closed and with a demonstration of extreme incompetence
in our case.

“Eleven ambulances queued at Wrexham
Maelor A&E is not a record – I’ve previously counted 16 on my way from a
routine appointment – but now this is happening consistently and regularly.

“Increasing throughput by discharging
patients prematurely and are borderline unsafe discharges in many instances
will not be tolerated any longer.”

Mr Crumpton adds: “We are particularly
hard-hit by your board’s decision to move our GPs to a vehicle-only, out-of-town
location and now our access to the Maelor admissions is almost impossible.

“Please respond with a statement I can
give to the people of Llangollen to explain why there is little or no primary
health care in North East Wales and exactly how, and within what timescale, you
intend to restore it.”

A planning application was
submitted last year for the Cymdeithas Tai Clwyd housing association to build six
new homes on the site of the cottage hospital plus a further six on the car
park opposite. This is believed to be still pending.